MIAMI, May 28 (UPI) -- Colombian cocaine pioneer Fabio Ochoa was convicted Wednesday of resuming his drug smuggling ways after he served five years on cocaine charges.
The co-founder of the defunct Medellin cocaine conspiracy is the highest-profile Colombian suspect to face trial in the United States since the two countries resumed extraditions in 1997.
It took a 12-member jury, cloaked in anonymity, five hours over two days to reach the guilty verdict. The maximum penalty is life in federal prison.
After the verdict was read, Ochoa dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross. His attorney, Roy Black, said he would appeal the verdict.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore set sentencing for Aug. 19.
Fearing jury tampering, Moore had ordered information on the jury be kept secret.
They weren't sequestered, but they were ferried in two vans with tinted windshields every day from the courthouse to a secret location where they picked up their cars or met their rides.
In closing arguments, prosecutors Ricardo Del Toro and Edward Ryan asked why Ochoa, 46, would spend so much of his time in a drug smugglers' office.
They said Ochoa was a consultant to Alejandro Bernal, who was running the operation at the time. Bernal has pleaded guilty and was a key witness against Ochoa.
Del Toro said Bernal's office was "drug-trafficking central, the Wal-Mart of drug trafficking."
Black said the case was about Ochoa's stature as a former cocaine kingpin.
"The mere fact you associate with people is not enough to convict you. It may be stupid, but it's not a crime," Black said.
Ochoa was one of 43 suspected drug traffickers indicted by Operation Millennium and indicted in 1999 in south Florida.
Ochoa is only one of two remaining defendants. Of the remainder, seven remain at large and 34 have pleaded guilty. The other defendant awaiting trial is considered a minor figure.
Ochoa, his two older brothers and Pablo Escobar were the leaders of the Medellin cartel that operated above the law in Colombia from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
It ended when Escobar was shot and killed by police and the Ochoas turned themselves in to Colombian authorities under an agreement that guaranteed they would not be extradited to the United States if they would plead guilty to minor charges.
Fabio Ochoa served less than six years and then was released. But U.S. prosecutors said he went right back into the cocaine business in 1996 and was indicted three years later on new charges.
His brothers were not indicted.
Under terms of the extradition agreement, the prosecution was not allowed to use evidence involving anything that happened before his jail term in Colombia.
